>In the early nineteenth century, Southern Italy suffered greatly from the raids of small gangs of bandits who would descend from their hideouts in the mountains of Calabria and Abruzzi to rob travelers and to loot the villages. The authorities seemed unable to squelch the bands of thieves and protect the people, and only the vendettas and feuds between gangs themselves prevented the outlaws from uniting as one force to wreak greater havoc. Then, in 1816, a man named Ciro Annichiarico (d. 1818) became southern Italy’s greatest nightmare when he claimed the power of Jupiter, father of the gods of Imperial Rome, and successfully brought the bandit gangs into a single striking force, leading them to rob, pillage, and burn under the banner of the skull and crossbones and the motto, “Sadness, Death, Terror, and Mourning.”